What is this an example of to you?

[Seth]

The Federal government is out of control and needs to be reined in, hard.

The government is the puppet of capitalism. In order to rein it in you'll have to destroy the power of the greedy fucks that pull the strings. Good luck trying. The only way to do that is by liquidating their useful idiots. Start at the top of the footsoldier hierarchy - libertarians, then spread out to neutralising tea party activists, religious fundamentalists and any other prominent right wing nutters. They are the bulwark of governmental abuse. Deprived of it, middle management will become ineffective and the evil government unable to do anything at all. We'll be free of capitalist oppression at last.

And we will then immediately fall under the yoke of Communist oppression, which is far, far worse.

[cronus]

The government need to send in the tanks and send a clear message concerning what happens.

[FBM]

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show ... sis-nevada

So, on the one hand we have Bundy, who’s said, “I don’t recognize [the] United States government as even existing.” It led him to repeatedly ignore federal law, repeatedly blow federal court rulings, and refuse to pay federal fines for his transgressions. On the other hand we have the United States government – which does, in fact, exist – showing considerable restraint in trying to resolve the problem.

And more about what he said: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/0 ... hind-bars/

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy speaks like a man from another century. In an interview with conservative radio host Dana Loesch, Bundy claims that “this is a sovereign state of Nevada.” Though he swears that he will “abide by all of Nevada state laws,” he adds that “I don’t recognize [the] United States Government as even existing.”

I smell a

[laklak]

The Feds land-grabbed about 60% of the west with the stroke of a pen. Didn't happen back east. Interesting little visual here:



What gives them the right to do this? Show me, in the Constitution, where it says "all land belong me" and I'll consider their claims. Otherwise they're simply thieves, stealing land from the sovereign states by force of arms. The land rightfully belongs to Nevada, it is up to Nevada how they use it.

[Hermit]

It's not in the constitution because it has nothing to do with the constitution. As Seth pointed out, Congress made it a condition of the federal government owning unappropriated land for a territory to become a state. The territories assented. That was their choice. They could have chosen to stay away from the federation, and keep those lands under territorial control, but they did not. If you have a complaint, address it to the territorians of the time.

[laklak]

All federal law is sourced from the Constitution, though sometimes the provenance is a bit convoluted and tracks through multiple acts of Congress and court decisions. Their conditions were unconstitutional at the time and are unconstitutional now. You cannot, under law, sign away constitutional protections via a contract or other agreement. However, I certainly don't expect SCOTUS to overrule the naked land grab, considering who pays their salaries.

We need a constitutional convention, a revolution or secession. I don't really care which one.

[pErvinalia]

All of the above!

[Hermit]

All federal law is sourced from the Constitution, though sometimes the provenance is a bit convoluted and tracks through multiple acts of Congress and court decisions. Their conditions were unconstitutional at the time and are unconstitutional now. You cannot, under law, sign away constitutional protections via a contract or other agreement.

Which constitutional protection applies to the signing over of unappropriated land?

[Svartalf]

Right to freely use said land as 'commons' I guess... assuming this artifact of British law is of any relevance in the postrevolutionary USA

[laklak]

5th Amendment prohibition against exercise of eminent domain without compensation, 10th Amendment delegated powers, the Enumerated Powers clause of Article 1, Section 8.

[Svartalf]

5th Amendment prohibition against exercise of eminent domain without compensation, 10th Amendment delegated powers, the Enumerated Powers clause of Article 1, Section 8.

Eminent domain, being the seizure of someone's real estate, does not apply to federally/publicly owned land.

[Seth]

It's not in the constitution because it has nothing to do with the constitution. As Seth pointed out, Congress made it a condition of the federal government owning unappropriated land for a territory to become a state. The territories assented. That was their choice. They could have chosen to stay away from the federation, and keep those lands under territorial control, but they did not. If you have a complaint, address it to the territorians of the time.

The pertinent question is whether or not the Congress had the constitutional authority to impose such a condition. There is a very good argument that it did and does not have such authority. The United States is a union of sovereign states, not a group of provinces under a central government. The structure was designed as a union of sovereign states that granted certain explicit and limited powers to an elected federal government. It is not at all like most European countries that are first and foremost individual nations that grant limited powers to regions, districts or cantons to govern under the general oversight and authority of the central government.

The federal government exists at the pleasure of the people, and the states are their sovereign representatives. Those powers not expressly granted to the Congress are reserved to the states or to the people themselves.

Therefore, Congress is and was nothing more than a temporary steward of public lands acquired by treaty or war that was not yet organized into a state by the residents. Notice that it is not Congress that organizes a state, it is the residents of the region that organize the state. Once organized, Congress' role as the elected representatives of the existing states in the Union is to give assent to the entry of the state into the Union, and only that. Nothing in the Constitution grants Congress the power to lay conditions on new states that are not explicitly laid out in the Constitution itself, which requires that the state guarantee a "republican form of government." Nowhere is found authority for the federal government to be other than a temporary steward of public lands acquired by Congress for the benefit of the people, who are the actual owners of the land.

The conditions set on the western states was a usurpation of power and authority from the newly-formed states themselves, which under the Constitution had no obligation whatsoever to ask permission of the Congress to organize as a sovereign state. Again, the residents of the state vote to incorporate as a state, and when that is done, then the state legislature petitions for entry to the Union. What this means is that at the moment that the residents of the territory vote to become a state and organize a state legislature under an organic act and state constitution, that land is a state, and the land in that state belongs to the people of that state, and NOT to the Congress. The coercion of the surrender of rights for entry to the Union is unconstitutional because it clearly violates the Equal Footing doctrine and exceeds the authority Congress has in the matter of the creation of new states.

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1

The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1

The manner in which the new States were to be admitted into the union, according to the Ordinance of 1787, as expressed therein, is as follows:

"And whenever any of the said states shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants therein, such state shall be admitted by its delegates into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever."

Thus it appears that the stipulations, trusts, and conditions, are substantially the same in both of these deeds of cession, and the acts of Congress, and of the State legislatures in relation thereto, are founded in the same reasons of policy and interest, with this exception, however -- the cession made by Virginia was before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, and that of Georgia afterwards. Taking the legislative acts of the United States, and the States of Virginia and Georgia, and their deeds of cession to the United States, and giving to each, separately, and to all jointly, a fair interpretation, we must come to the conclusion that it was the intention of the parties to invest the United States with the eminent domain of the country ceded, both national and municipal, for the purposes of temporary government, and to hold it in trust for the performance of the stipulations and conditions expressed in the deeds of cession and the legislative acts connected with them. To a correct understanding of the rights, powers, and duties of the parties to these contracts, it is necessary to enter into a more minute examination of the rights of eminent domain, and the right to the public lands. When the United States accepted the cession of the territory, they took upon themselves the trust to hold the municipal eminent domain for the new States, and to invest them with it, to the same extent, in all respects, that it was held by the States ceding the territories.
...
And, if an express stipulation had been inserted in the agreement, granting the municipal right of sovereignty and eminent domain to the United States, such stipulation would have been void and inoperative, because the United States have no constitutional capacity to exercise municipal jurisdiction, sovereignty, or eminent domain, within the limits of a State or elsewhere, except in the cases in which it is expressly granted.

By the 16th clause of the 8th section of the 1st article of the Constitution, power is given to Congress

"to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may by cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased, by the consent of the legislature of the State in which the same may be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings."

Within the District of Columbia, and the other places purchased and used for the purposes above mentioned, the national and municipal powers of government, of every description, are united in the Government of the Union. And these are the only cases within the United States in which all the powers of government are united in a single government, except in the cases already mentioned of the temporary territorial governments, and there a local government exists. The right of Alabama and every other new State to exercise all the powers of government, which belong to and may be exercised by the original States of the union, must be admitted, and remain unquestioned, except so far as they are, temporarily, deprived of control over the public lands.

Pollard's Lessee v. Hagan, 44 U.S. 3 How. 212 212 (1845)

Emphasis added

As we can see, the Supreme Court declared that the "equal footing doctrine" which descends from the Ordinance of 1787, does not grant Congress sovereign authority over the territories it acquires, it grants only stewardship trust authority over lands organized into states, and that stewardship does not admit a power to condition the admittance of the state to the Union on a forfeiture of the sovereign title to the land by the newly-formed state to the federal government in the persona of the Congress, which according to Constitutional limitations, is limited to acquiring from the states those lands, and ONLY those lands explicitly mentioned in Article 2, Section 8, "Enclave Clause":

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;

Emphasis added

Nowhere is Congress granted other than stewardship authority over non-state territorial lands, which authority ceases to exist the moment the residents of the state vote for statehood and organize a legislature to ratify an Organic Act and state Constitution.

[Seth]

5th Amendment prohibition against exercise of eminent domain without compensation, 10th Amendment delegated powers, the Enumerated Powers clause of Article 1, Section 8.

Eminent domain, being the seizure of someone's real estate, does not apply to federally/publicly owned land.

But it does apply to property rights (other than the fee title to the land) validly acquired by private individuals, which includes grazing, irrigation, fencing, road construction, dam construction and other activities perfected as protected individual property rights in the USE of public lands acquired through various means. In Colorado, the waters of the state belong to the people of the state, NOT to the government and particularly NOT the federal government, despite the fact that the water lies upon, falls upon or passes over federal lands. This creates an overriding private property right in both the water itself and the necessary structures for storage and transport of waters, such as dams, reservoirs and ditches that may lie upon public lands.

I own storage rights in a reservoir in Colorado, which includes the right to access, maintain and operate the dam and to divert, transport and use the water stored in it. The Forest Service has no authority to interfere with those rights or coerce me into forfeiting either my rights, some amount of water, or money as a condition of using the National Forest lands. I have a permanent, perpetual, non-cancellable easement for both the dam and reservoir, the access roads and the ditches and canals needed to deliver the water to my property in writing from the Department of Agriculture. If they deny me those rights, it is a "taking" for which just compensation is required.

The same is true of "grazing allotments" all over the west. Those leases are a valuable private property right that may be used, sold or traded by the owners as if they were private property, and the government may not unduly interfere with the historical usage rights of such easements without justly compensating the owner of those rights. While the government does have supervisory authority to protect the land against damage, it cannot abuse that authority in a scheme to dispossess the owners of those rights by imposing impossible conditions or restricting the existing property rights to the extent that they are effectively voided.

And that is what he is claiming is happening, and he's exactly correct because that is exactly what the Department of Agriculture has set out to do to EVERY public-lands rancher by using the "death of a thousand cuts" to incrementally infringe on their property rights until they have become valueless.

It's about time someone stood up to the government to protest this egregious constitutional violation of private property rights.

[cronus]

Government will send the drones if pushed too far, just to show they are prepared to use them domestically Seth. Drones > Rights.

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show ... sis-nevada

So, on the one hand we have Bundy, who’s said, “I don’t recognize [the] United States government as even existing.” It led him to repeatedly ignore federal law, repeatedly blow federal court rulings, and refuse to pay federal fines for his transgressions. On the other hand we have the United States government – which does, in fact, exist – showing considerable restraint in trying to resolve the problem.

And more about what he said: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/0 ... hind-bars/

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy speaks like a man from another century. In an interview with conservative radio host Dana Loesch, Bundy claims that “this is a sovereign state of Nevada.” Though he swears that he will “abide by all of Nevada state laws,” he adds that “I don’t recognize [the] United States Government as even existing.”

I smell a

He's making noises somewhat like those involved with the Sovereign Citizen movement I've heard about?

(Not that I'm following this deeply.)